Where are The Block’s biggest losers today?

It has been almost five years since Michael and Carlene Duffy appeared on The Block — taking home a “paltry” $10K. But The Block’s biggest losers are now the biggest winners.

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It has been nearly five years since Carlene Duffy and her husband Michael appeared on one of the most tumultuous seasons of The Block, and they are only now coming up for air.

Our time on The Block: Glasshouse in 2014 was ages ago and yet it feels like it was only yesterday that we were up all night painting, worrying about build and design, and having our rooms critiqued by the judges.

And it feels like only five minutes ago that we were experiencing a huge blow on auction day [the couple took home $10k on a night which saw the winners rake in a comparative $435k — one of the biggest upsets in The Block history].

The Block’s auction night was a hard pill to swallow. (Picture: Mark Stewart)

We were so disappointed. It was hard to watch the next auction after us. And some of the other contestants were disappointed with more than a hundred grand!

Our season of The Block was an eye-opener to everyone involved. In the season before us, the winners won $700k and the losers, if you can call them that, took away five hundred grand.

So there were very high expectations of the outcome going into our edition of The Block. The fact that the auctions tanked for three out of the five couples — not by real standards, but certainly by The Block standards — was shocking.

Some people thought it was great for ratings and maybe some kind of set-up, but truthfully no-one wanted to see those auction results happen. It was what it was.

The years since The Block have been a whirlwind for the couple. In a good way. (Picture: Supplied)

While it wasn’t an easy pill to swallow, it was also beyond our control. Our apartment was actually tipped to win. Michael and I knew we’d produced a special apartment and we were really proud of our work, and in the end that was what really mattered.

We made a conscious decision to do the best we could in everything we put our minds to, and not to dwell on the disappointment.

The stress associated with the series is a focused stress. You’ve got one job — to deliver a room within a week. Granted, you’ve got a lot of eyes on you and there’s so much going on behind the scenes that the audience doesn’t get to see.

I remember not sleeping for entire nights and being exhausted. But at least you weren’t multi-tasking. We only had one thing to focus on for 12 weeks.

In many ways, post-Block is more stressful. We’ve now got our home design and renovation business Cedar & Suede, which was launched the day after the auction, the kids [Paddy, nine, and Stella, seven] are in school now, and we have a few renovation TV partnerships under our belt.

Carlene and Michael Duffy will feature in this Sunday’s Stellar.

The years since The Block have been a whirlwind. It’s been full-on having all these experiences and being on this new career path.

Having said that, one of the best things about owning your own business is the flexibility. We’ve never even hired anyone under the business.

It’s a total manic juggle but we love knowing we can be there for our children; that we can be at school to watch a performance if we need to. It’s all about weeding out what you’d like to do and don’t want to do. That’s half the battle.

If we were asked to go on The Block again, Michael would say yes in a heartbeat — but I’d have to think about it. I just don’t know.

Having to leave the kids at this age would be harder because they’ve got a much better sense and understanding of time now.

But I would never say no. I would just say TBC.

For more information on Cedar & Suede, visit cedarandsuede.com.au.

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Originally published as Where are The Block’s biggest losers today?